Ablekuma North places premium on community-driven projects

The Ablekuma North Municipal Assembly is placing premium on community-driven projects.

At a town hall meeting with stakeholders at Darkuman in Accra, last Monday, the Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) of the Assembly, Mr Kofi Ofori, stressed that every project or programme of the assembly would be "community-driven" and that no project would be undertaken outside the assembly's planned activities.

He was briefing stakeholders at the Town Hall meeting on the assembly's Four-Year Medium-Term Development Plan (MTDP).

This was in line with the decentralisation policy of the government and the assemblies, which requires the preparation and implementation of their development plans to ensure the overall development of their respective areas.

Mr Ofori, said to achieve the status of a decentralised Public Administrative System, a Needs Assessment was collated from stakeholders last year, and that information formed the basis for the development projects and programmes as inputs into the MTDP and Annual Action Plan of the assembly.

He encouraged them to take ownership of every project being undertaken by the assembly or the central government, adding that based on the inputs from the stakeholders, the assembly completed the maintenance of 250 street lights across the municipality, with the installation of 100 more in the offing.

The assembly, he said, awarded on contract for construction a two-storey 12-unit classroom block at the Kwashieman Cluster of Schools and a six-unit classroom block at the Odorkor Maclean Cluster of Schools.

In order to protect the Saleria Cluster of Schools from encroachment, Mr Ofori said the assembly would be fencing the school and also put up a Kindergarten (KG) block for the pre-school.

On roads, the MCE said, the Department of Urban Roads had begun work on the eight kilometres of selected roads from Darkuman, which would affect other surrounding areas such as Kwashieman, Awoshie and Odorkor.

He said another 2.5 kilometres had also started from Sakaman.

Mr Ofori bemoaned the indiscriminate dumping of refuse into drains and on the streets despite the rigorous public education by the Sanitation Ministry and the assembly, a situation he described as a "major setback in the sanitation and waste management situation".

The Development Planning Officer of the assembly, Hajia Mamata Musah Sheriff, said the forum was an opportunity for the stakeholders to know what the assembly had done and what would be done in the future.

She said when the municipal assembly was carved out of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), it had to fashion out its own development agenda based on the President's and nation's vision of "Agenda for Jobs - Creating Prosperity and Equal Opportunities for All".

She said although inflows from the central government were limited, Internally Generated Funds (IGF) were limitless, hence citizens should assist the municipal assembly to raise more revenue to develop the area. —GNA